Come Morning Light
by carved in the sand
Summary: She wraps her arms around him like she's done a hundred thousand times, with a bruising grip he calls familiar in his sleep. - SasuSaku/AU


**A/N:** _I don't even fucking know WHEN I wrote this but it was before summer and I wrote it for my friend on tumblr (all my love jenbutt), and I decided to revamp it. _

_One of the main components to why I think they would work as a couple in the series is because Sakura is, almost unrealistically, selfless and loving to those she cares about. Especially Duckbutt. She has so much heart and she puts it into everything even at the cost of hurting herself because that's just Sakura. She refuses to let Sasuke suffer and become even more insane (which is why she tried to kill him). Someone like Sasuke, who has so much damage, needs that support and constant, unconditional love. And me being a Sasuke-coddler half the goddamn time, that really hits me. My baby needs that. He does. _

_Oh, who am I kidding. Sakura will probably smack the shit out of the the first second she gets and I support that decision on hundred percent. _

_I'm sorry this is so long but shit this is my OTP. You can't blame me. This is AU as hell so yeah drink it up and enjoy. Remember to review! Lyrics by Taylor Swift & the Civil Wars, "Safe & Sound". (I recommend putting this shit on repeat as you read ok). _

_._

_._

_._

_just close your eyes_

_the sun is going down_

_you'll be alright_

_no one can hurt you now_

_come morning light_

_you and I'll be safe & sound_

.

.

.

It's been six years since she'd seen his face in sunlight, six years of hiding and hoping and hating. There is nothing else to do anymore except to close her eyes and thread her fingers into his as they lay in her bed, let the darkness consume them. She is not afraid anymore.

The shadows have always suited him.

.

.

.

Sakura knew it was past midnight, because she'd been staring out her bedroom window for hours until the clear cerulean skies had faded into violet, and finally melting into black. The wind had become louder, thickdroplets of water splattering against the glass that left her edgy. She sat up in bed, pressing her back up against her headboard and curled into herself as she wrapped her arms around her knees.

The pink-haired girl stares at her bed sheets, pale blue and well worn from years of poor sleeping habits and thrashing nightmares. Her eyes squint at the color, reaching out a finger to trace invisible patterns onto the blanket.

_'Soldiers don't have baby blue bedsheets,'_ she mused.

When Sasuke slipped through the window, with his cloak dripping wet and his nin sandals squelching at the windowsill, she jerks out of her reverie to meet his eyes. Her body relaxes of it's own accord, akin to an old, aching fondness and a wry exhaustion that warms her skin.

"You're so loud, Sasuke-kun. You're gonna wake someone up," Sakura said, almost in greeting. He rolls his eyes, slipping off his cloak and shoes before tossing them into the corner underneath the windowsill. Sasuke made his way towards the bed with quiet, heavy footsteps. She met his face of pale skin and unreadable pools of ink head with that same tired smile.

She decided to ignore the purplish-black half moons that made his face look hollow. They've gotten darker since she's last seen him. He's thicker, with arms corded more muscle, but the skin that wrapped over them was sickly.

He sized her up as well. She knew that anxious, irritated look well enough. _You've gotten thinner are you eating well enough do you drink enough water are you training too hard don't ruin yourself you idiot I swear I worry over you like a child why are you so pale do you ever get any sun why are you eyes so sunken in._

Sasuke opened his mouth to chastise, but Sakura cut him off. "Don't even. I'm not in the mood."

Scoff. "Then maybe you should look in a mirror."

"I always end up cringing anyways."

Sasuke laughed like warmth melted into warm chuckles. Her heart squeezed, skin flushing hotly and everything seemed to constrict into her throat all at once.

How many more times will she be able to hear his laugh alive? How many more times will she be able to tease him, to stare into his eyes and smile at him tiredly and hold his scarred, calloused hand?

Before her eyes had the chance to prickle with tears, Sakura lunges for him: her hand fisting in the material of his shirt, their foreheads pressed together, his scent filling up the air around him. There is nothing soft and nothing kind about this kiss. It's needy, burning, simmering with all the want and fear that's bubbling into her chest. She melds words into the language of their lips moving together.

It was a long minute before they parted, heaving through misplaced lungs. Sasuke stared at her intensely, a question in his eyes.

"What would you do," she began, "if-if Sai ran into the room with a kunai ready to slit your throat?" It's a question she likes to ask sometimes. Each answer is different. Sometimes they die in an inglorious battle, side-by-side, and other times, the war ends, and they can truly be together.

Sasuke shrugs, leaning away from her and falling back onto the bed. His eyes find the ceiling lazily. "What would you do?" he replies carelessly.

"I'd protect you," she answered quietly, a smile pulling at her lips. She hadn't heard his voice in three months, but it's still the same. She's watched it change through six years and it's settled on a smooth, clear baritone that whispers gravel and familiar. "And we'd run away as traitors."

"We'd start a new life far away from the fire country."

"Have a bunch of cute kids with pink hair."

Sasuke's hand wraps around her waist and he pulls her into him, settling her onto his lap. "The pink hair is a deal breaker."

Sakura grinned brightly, making the moon look dull. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into his face, pressing a warm kiss to his jaw. They weren't happy but they were too in love for their own good, too good at lying. At night, she could pretend right here in this bed.

He could turn hell into home and she'd still be in his lap, kissing love ballads into his teeth.

.

.

.

Minutes spent silently became hours, where they slipped underneath the covers of her bed. Sasuke tosses an arm around her shoulder, heaves his chin over the crown of his head with weight. He can feel the tiredness settle heavily into his bones, and he wants to sleep, never wake again. He could lay there like a corpse with Sakura in his arms, and he'd be okay.

The morning sunlight to come in and paint her bedroom walls from yellow to orange.

The young Uchiha breathes deeply, inhaling flowers, soap, and medical herbs that he can't name. They change too often for him to notice. Sasuke lazily focuses on the nightstand next to Sakura's bed that held a picture of her and her team, and the pressure of her frame pressed into his own before sleep manages to tuck him into the darkness.

This will always be familiar, no matter how drastically they both change: skin still soft, breath still shallow, the ends of her hair still scratchy against the back of his hand. This will never change.

He leaves the next morning while she's still asleep, while the sun is just beginning to rise, and brushes the hair from her face.

.

.

.

She is thinner than he remembers. There are bones that poke from her skin that did not before. It comes to him sharply, like an errant thought that hid in the shadows of his mind before presenting itself. He's never felt her collar bones poke into his neck like that.

The fear is mind-rattling and all consuming, threatening to swallow him whole.

.

.

.

After years of lying, plotting, of prolonging the inevitable, Uchiha Itachi sided with his clan. The Uchiha's coup d'etat failed. The Hokage was killed in the process. A war was declared, sides were firmly made, and a thirteen-year-old Sasuke found himself breaking away from his teacher and teammates to be enlisted as a soldier. His brother was hailed as a hero that would go down in their people's history books.

And Sasuke would grow into a soldier.

He grew up being ignored and treated like a robot. He began to fight against old comrades, _friends_ on battlefields soaked with his family's blood. He began to kill men twice his age and children younger than him. He ate only when he felt faint and dizzied, spent mornings and afternoons pouring his chakra into perfection jutsu. He made fresh wounds and picked at his scabs.

It left him with a fractured sense of reality and instability.

At fourteen, Sasuke began to question his sanity. At fifteen, he was killing dozens and dozens of Konoha shinobi with the deadliest of his family's jutsu. At sixteen, he gained the mangekyou and began his descent into blindness.

When he's not on the battlefield, training, or watching the strategy meetings with his brother and father with the clan leaders, he's thinking somewhere quiet - usually in his room at the windowseat in the very far corner of the massive space.

He's reminded of the first time he came into this room, looking outside the window of the half-built compound on the edges of the Fire Country and wondering if he'd ever end up killing Naruto or Sakura.

Now, he sits there, contemplating if he would really want to know.

.

.

.

"Shikamaru's getting married."

"Oh...oh Ino."

The blonde stirred the sugar into her tea calculatingly, with all of her usual elegance, but the redness around her eyes and the sheet-white pallor of her skin made her look more like a ghost. The sunshine spilling in from the kitchen windows of Sakura's house made her seemingly translucent.

The bad news settled between them like rotten smell, unwanted and stomach-turning.

Ino continued to speak regardless.

"It's to...strengthen the ties between Suna and Konoha. So that they'll help with the war. He's marrying the Kazekage's sister. Her name is Temari," Ino continued, her voice steady and strong, her fingers shaking just slightly. The tea cup rattled against the saucer. "Last night he told me that he's been in love with her since he first saw her at the Chuunin exams when he was thirteen."

Sakura remained silent, her face loosing color as well. Ino had been insanely in love with her teammate since they were genin. The pink-haired girl's heart sank into her boots.

"I've decided to head to the front lines next month." The blonde took a sip of her green tea, eyes fluttering closed. "The intelligence division needs more back up, and the Hokage's been pressuring me to head back up there anyways."

_"What?"_ Sakura snapped, almost spilling her tea cup. "Why are you heading out there _again?_ You've served your six month requirement last year and you haven't been requested! Do you want to get yourself killed?"

"I focused better in the war front, Sakura. In control. I was in _control_. I wasn't worried about Shikamaru, or how I looked, or the latest gossip, or any of those stupid things. I want to get in control again," Ino answered much more calmly than her friend. "This has nothing to do with him."

"This has _everything_ to do with him," Sakuira hissed, eyes flashing. Ino met her glare with an icy one of her own. "This has everything to do with Shikamaru and you're just running from it."

Ino glared harshly at the pink-haired girl, her grip on the tea cup threatening to shatter it. "I want you to fall in love with a man, who doesn't give a damn about your feelings. Spend seven years of your life in love with him," she spat, blue eyes flashing with pain. "And then I want you to listen to him talk about the woman he's actually in love with for _an hour and a half on your fucking birthday _before you were planning to tell him everything."

Sakura's anger faded away, head bowing. She bit her lip sharply.

"He'll personally give you an invitation to the wedding. Smile at you, in a way he's never smiled before, and it's _not_ because of you. It won't ever be because of you. Then I want you to sit through his entire wedding as he promises the rest of his life to someone else."

Sakura physically froze, her heart throbbing in her chest. Images of Sasuke and a girl with black hair, snow white skin, and a beautiful wedding kimono, pulling together in a kiss sifted through her head almost painfully. She swallowed thickly.

"Ino _please_ think about this-,"

Ino stood from her chair, placing the tea cup down, sliding back from her chair, and walking silently out of the kitchen.

Sakura flinched when she heard the door slam.

.

.

.

Sakura has trained under the best and the brightest in this village. Sakura has learned broken bones as fast as she has mended them here. She has become a soldier, ready to defend her village to the best of her ability because dear god, if she didn't love this place. The trees were too green and the air was too sweet and her parent's corpses decomposed under her her feet. This is where she would always be.

But goddamn, if she didn't wake up some morning more bitter than her coffee.

All this blood she has shed and all these bodies she has let rot for this village, and what does it give her in return? A broken heart, dead loved ones, and the unraveling of her sanity?

There is nothing more tedious these days than tying her forehead protector and watching the leaf etched in the metal glint dully.

Loyalty is such an empty thing to her these days.

.

.

.

Sakura jumped awake, eyes opened wide as she took in the form dressed in black and stinking of blood.

The storm outside was wilder than when she'd fallen asleep earlier, the moderate rain turning into something akin to a hurricane. The thunder was deafening, but not able to mute the slipping, squeaking sound of footsteps against hardwood floor, jolting her out of her sleep. She was stumbling out of her bed, slipping from the sheets, reaching for a kunai under her pillow when the lightning flashed again, revealing the figure's face in a moment of light.

"Oh, Sasuke," Sakura murmured, lowering her weapon in turn.

He merely grimaced at her, holding his left shoulder that poured with blood. She raced over to him, ushering him out of his wet cloak and shirt, and onto her bed. The wound on his shoulder continued in a jagged line down his chest. The stench of blood weighed down on her lungs, wrapping her in a metallic cloud of it as her hands glowed green and hovered just above his skin.

"What _happened_ to you?" she asked quietly, green eyes flashing between fury and anxiety. "Who did this?"

"Ambush," he muttered back. Sasuke had closed his eyes and left his mouth. "They found me in unclaimed territory."

"Out by the border? What the hell were you doing out there" she hissed, eyes fixated on her work as she began to meticulously repair the internal damage of his organs. Those wounds weren't severe, but there was significant bloodloss. "It's filled with ANBU out there, you idiot. And _not_ just Konoha either - like they're the only ones that would like to mount your head on their wall."

The Uchiha had gained as many friends as enemies in the endless war with Konoha. Sides, from many countries and hidden villages, had been drawn up. They'd dragged the whole world into war.

"Mission," he grunted out.

Sakura groaned, continuing to heal him as she stared on his half-lifeless form, wondering how much blood he would have to spill before he'd be empty. "You should have been able to handle that," she muttered. "You should have been able to handle _at least_ ten of them-,"

"I'm going blind."

Her eyes widened into saucers.

"The Mangekyou form of the Sharingan...deteriorates the actual eye. I've been using it too much. I wasn't able to see them clearly," Sasuke said in a hushed down. The rasping of his tone sent fearful shills down her throat, nightmares of his corpse laid out onto charred grass creeping up her spine and flashing behind her eyes. Sakura's chakra already began to fade as his wound was stitching itself together. She let a hand brush over his forehead, smoothing the hair from his face and began to worry.

.

.

.

He left two days later, after she'd completely healed him and they laid together in her bed for an immeasurable amount of time. She cooked him breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She sat on her bed with him and read medical journals while he rested. She didn't let him do a thing by himself.

It wasn't hard, shooing away her friends so she could be alone with the young Uchiha. One look at her face and the words "I need some rest" could be nothing but honesty.

It's been the most peaceful two days of her life. Sakura knows she will have to let this boy go soon, but she doesn't want to. Every cell in her body refuses to let him leave her side and she feels it, the aching need of his presence.

.

.

.

"If you ever had to marry a girl from the clan," she begins timidly. "Would you do it? If it depended on the entire welfare of the Uchiha, would you do it?"

Sasuke rolls his eyes.

"I wouldn't want to endanger the girl," he says dully, purposefully trying to keep any conviction from his tone. "You'd probably rip her to shreds. I doubt you'd ever leave me alone."

"True," Sakura mutters happily. "I"ll never leave you alone. Even if you beg me to."

He can only focus on _'I'll never leave'_ long enough to stay awake.

.

.

.

Sakura is making her rounds at the hospital with all the weariness in the world when someone's hands find their way around her eyes. His scent is enough to give him away instantly, but there's still the slight hesitation. "Guess who, Sakura-chan?"

His voice immediately melts it away.

She shrieks and drops her clip board, whirling around to see a two and a half-year-older Naruto, with sun-kissed skin, longer hair and the same, thousand-watt smile that seemed to light up the whole village. He left the entire place dimmer without it, left her dimmer too. Sakura jumped on him, arms clutching fiercely around his neck.

"Whoa!" he shouts back. "Shit, you're heavy."

"Shut up!" Sakura snaps back, her voice shaky and trekking between a laugh and a sob. "Oh, oh god you're so _tall_. And you need a _haircut_." His laughter rang through her ears more sweetly than anything she'd ever heard.

Immediately, she told him to wait for her at Ichakiru's while finished up her last few patients, rushed over to the ramen stand like her life depended on it.

Together, they began to catch up about the past two years, six months, one week, and three days that he's been away, fighting a never-ending battle on the front lines against the Uchiha.

"I saw Sasuke last week," Naruto suddenly interjected.

Sakura choked on her noodles instantly.

Naruto pounded a fist against her back, becoming flustered when she seized her neck.

"Jeez! What the hell's the matter, Sakura?" the blonde shouts. Sakura shakes her head, waving a hand at him to continue. He retracts his hand cautiously, watching her gasp for breathe. "Well, uh, I saw him. He was fighting with his brother against one of the main regiments. I actually got to take a whack at him myself. The bastard's gotten way stronger, with his freaky eyes. His clan's power-ups are totally cheating."

Sakura stares at him in shock, blinking back the tears from her eyes. An ache began to claw inside her chest. "D-did he tell you anything? Anything at all? And what _happened exactly?_"

Naruto shrugged, his feigned-nonchalance melting into regret. "Not much. Just bullshit macho stuff," he muttered. "And for the record, he made _me_ fight him. Totally tried to ram his sword through my gut. But…..I was so goddamned _scared_, Sakura. I haven't seen him in years, and then I suddenly find him on the battlefield and I'm expected to kill him. And he just kept coming at me, wouldn't listen to anything I was saying."

The ache on his face reflected the constant ache in her heart.

"This war needs to end." Naruto's face seems to age ten years in that moment. "Otherwise, I'm going to be called back again on that field, and then he's going to electrocute my ass to death, because I'm sure as hell not going to be the one to throw a death blow."

.

.

.

It had been four and a half months since she'd last seen him. She is now twenty, and winter is beginning to come once more.

Sakura had spent the time biting her nails, loosing sleep, and crying in the shower. Every day spent away from her was another day that he'd spend fighting and playing clan politics and going at war against Konoha, more chances for him to end up a corpse. Naruto notices the slump in the set of her shoulders, the redness of her chapped lip that she continually bites in her worrisome thoughts.

Silently, strongly, she wipes the tears from her face and washes away the redness over her eyes with the heat of the shower.

.

.

.

When he does return, he's a mess.

Sakura awakes to see a pale face and frightened, crimson eyes staring down at her. The Sharingan and blood dripping from his face contrasted with the whiteness of the lightning flashing through her room, creating a horrific scene. He looked demonic, a creature from hell, and she flinches violently away from his touch until her eyes clear from sleep. "Sasuke," she breathes out heavily, standing from her bed and lifting herself to her feet, reaching for him.

Her entire system floods with relief, too heavy for her system to take without making her stumble. Her hands cradle his face like it's something precious and delicate.

"Itachi's _dead_," he croaks out hoarsely.

Sakura's lips fall open in shock.

Sasuke is on the verge of sobbing, breaking down, as the words begin to spill from his lips too fast. She can feel his entire form shaking madly. His eyes, a Mangekyou form she isn't familiar with, are still spinning. "T-the compound was ambushed, and there were - fucking ten of them - fucking _ten_-"

He gasps, doubling over in pain, grips her shoulders so tightly she thinks that he's going to shatter them. "They didn't take his body," he breaths out raggedly, eyes blinking madly. "Fa-th-father took Itachi's eyes and they knocked me out- they held me down and then when I woke up again, they injected this shit into my neck- Sakura, and when I woke up again, I woke up and saw so _clearly_, and I remembered Madara and I_ knew_."

Sakura blinks rapidly, hands reaching to cradle his face as she inspects the red scratches all around his eyes and the blood stains pouring from them. He was shaking his head furiously. "They're Itachi's and I_know_ they're his and _I want them out_," he grinds out. "Take them out for me. Rip them out of my head. I don't care, jus take them _out_."

She blinked rapidly, catching up with his words a quickly as she could. The pink-haired girl begins to gather soothing chakra into her hands and lets the green glow, sinking beneath his skin and into his nerves, slowing his shaking and easing the pain. "Sasuke-kun," she murmured. "I'm not taking them out."

"Why not? They aren't _mine_, Sakura, they're Itachi's. I-I _can't_."

"You need something to see with. And I don't have access to your old eyes. I couldn't perform a surgery on you that would leave you completely blind for the rest of your life," she whispered, her tone soothing and gentle, like she walking talking a patient down from the ledge. She brought his face a little closer to his. "Sleep with me, Sasuke."

The young Uchiha's eyes flicker up to her own, catching the memory of her words from years ago, the first time they'd made love.

His nod was unwilling, but she helped him out of his cloak and boots, slipping back under the covers with him. She wraps her arms around him like she's done a hundred thousand times. Her voice is hushed, whispered, equal parts comfort and fierceness.

"Just close your eyes," she murmurs, raking her nails up and down his spine. "No one can hurt you now, okay? No one."

_'I won't let them.'_ The thought is short and violent and bloody, a war cry, with all the fierceness her body can muster. She wraps her arms around him like she's done a hundred thousand times, with a bruising grip he calls familiar in his sleep.

.

.

.

The morning after, he leaves, a cold look on his face. It's still too dark to be awake when she feels him shift out of the bed, away from her sloppy embrace, and out of her room. Through half-closed eyes, Sasuke sees the empty look in his eyes as he leaves. Once he's fully dressed, he lies on the bed again, openly staring at her. Sakura continues to feign sleep.

"Run away with me," he says.

Her eyes snap open. "What?"

"Let's get the hell out of here," Sasuke says clearly, his hand snatching up her left wrist. He does not see the fear in her eyes. "I'm not the best of company, but I love you. And I want to be with you."

"_Sasuke_."

"Sakura."

"You know that I take you away from your family."

She says it to matter-of-factly that he physically recoils from her. Eyes still blurring with sleep, she hears him sigh, feels his knuckles brush against her cheek, and hears his footsteps as he leaves. It takes her two weeks to keep the marred image of unfocused black hair and white skin out of her eyelids.

.

.

.

Sakura has learned many, many things about Uchiha Sasuke over the past eight years.

If she has learned anything, it's that something very wrong and very scary is going to happen when he becomes irrational. And it shakes her to her core, this fear. Losing ration, losing reason, turns heartbeats into the sound of shovels against dirt.

.

.

.

Sasuke doesn't come back.

It takes her three months to understand that he will not.

Sometimes, at night, she'll stand by her windowsill and watch the dark skies float around, wondering if he's still alive. When his scent fades away from her bed sheets, she stays awake the whole night and recollects all their late night meetings over the years, since she was fourteen. She remembers the first time she told him that she loved him. She remembered the sex, his calloused hands too cold against her overheated skin.

She remembered the first time he cried in her arms. She remembered the smell of his breath, his_skin_, and she remembers so long that she forgets to keep her heart beating, forgets to _breathe-_

.

.

.

It takes much, much longer to stop crying in the shower every morning.

.

.

.

Sakura attends Ino's funeral next spring.

She wears the mint green dress that she always liked on her, with a black band wrapped tightly on her shoulder. She is a bright light in a sea of dark clothes and blonde hair, with colorful hair and colorful clothes. Yet her heart is as dead as Ino.

.

.

.

She's twenty seven when the war finally ends, when Naruto becomes Hokage. The Uchiha and Konoha make peace, becoming one again, and the leader of the Uchiha tell them that they hadn't seen Sasuke in almost seven years. The meeting, the celebrations, every black-haired, black-eyed man she sees walking along the streets of her village again, it all leaves a bitter taste on the back of her tongue.

And she's nauseous that night, bile burning in her throat, and it's all so goddamned _sickening_.

Sakura can't keep from punching her bedroom wall that night. She can't keep from crying in the shower the next morning.

.

.

.

They both seem to forget.

.

.

.

She is a dozen feet away, standing tall with her hair tied into a careless knot at the back of her head. He his mildly surprised at the way the Konoha flak jacket lays over her shoulders and chest, making her look older. If he didn't instantly recognize the shocking color of her hair, she could have been any kunoichi.

She does not hold up her guard, even when he is covered in blood, sword unsheathed and dripping with the life fluid. Her head is tilted slightly, analyzing him from the head down like he is doing to her.

Maybe it's the new, shocking clarity of his eyes that believes he's over reading, or the the hundering of her chakra system while she keeps her face impassive, or the way he can suddenly read all of her movements, the exact muscles in her shoulders and in her wrists and her legs. But she is bright and brilliant and clear and beautiful once more.

No more bones poking out. No more bags under her eyes.

No more war heaving over her shoulders into a slouch.

.

.

.

She grips him hard enough to leave bruises and he lets the ache settle into his skin.


End file.
